What can i do with a rooted android | Android Rooting

Well i have written many posts in this blog till now! Most of my tricks which had been discussed in this blog need your android phone to be rooted. I know that some of you know what is rooting and what are the advantages of rooting. Still there are some people who don’t know what is rooting and is it bad or good for your android phone? So that here we discuss the topic what can i do with a rooted android or what does rooting your phone do? Actually I get idea for this post from one hacking whatsapp account where someone asking for the benefit of rooting his phone.

Let’s start,

What is rooting?

The word root came from the Linux OS as you know that Android use Linux’s kernel. In Linux root user means a person who has access to all the areas inside an OS, just like that of Administrator in Windows PC. If we are an administrator or a root user we can grant access to all the applications and get into each and every folder and files and can read or edit it without fail.

In the case of android smartphones, different brands are developing their smartphones and they lock certain privileges so that the company or an authorized service person could have access to those features. For example we could not make changes to the system files of an android phone and whenever we try to do this it will show Access Denied.

Think that if we could edit the system files of android device we could write new codes and can change the themes or add extra features to our android phone according to our wish. But every company aims to keep their decorum and brand dignity so that they lock access to the system files.

According to Wikipedia : 

Rooting is the process of allowing users of smartphones, tablets and other devices running the Android mobile operating system to attain privileged control (known as root access) over various Android subsystems.

But i would say simply “Root is the process of allowing your phone to attain a superuser privilege that normally isn’t on your device.”

What can i do with a rooted android

In my case, i would say that the advantages of rooting your android phone is infinity and the disadvantages can be negligible (provided if your android phone is not so costly. Let us discuss some advantages of rooting android phones.

With rooted android phone you can.

 

Advantages of rooting Android phone

1) Install a Custom ROM on Rooted Android

I will be recently publishing a new detailed post on How to install Custom ROM on Android. Now let’s look at what is a custom ROM?

ROM stands for read only memory as you all know. Custom ROM is a separate  android user interface that will replace your current Android operating system and adds more functionalities to your android phone which your phone lacks now.

For example, if your android device does not support the manual update to Android Marshmallow, the latest android version, but you need to use that particular android OS and get the features of the latest android in your phone you could install a Custom ROM based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS.

Another example, If your device is Sony Xperia and you need to have Samsung user interface in your phone, there also you can depend on a Custom ROM which could install Samsung UI to your phone.

Installing a good Custom ROM will enhance the power stability and moreover it will your increase your device’s lifetime. There are many custom ROMs available in the internet which has been developed by professionals or android developers. The list of some Custom ROM developers is given below.

Custom ROM Developers

Cyanogen MOD

Paranoid Android

MIUI

XDA Developers

Replicant

AOSP

Pacman

With Cyanogen MOD custom rom you can change your boot logo, icon themes and can have dual account on yourandroid phone etc. The advantages of installing a custom ROMs are many.

Also read: How to use different fonts for different apps?

2) Install Xposed Framework

Xposed is framework that allows you to customize your ROM, without compiling and decompiling any APK’s, playing around with the root of the phone or flashing anything through the recovery. It can be installed through downloading the latest APK from their website (link). As with all processes that involve modifying anything in the base directory of Android, you will need to root your phone, will the information to do so is provided in the first post. Xposed, as itself, is only a framework, and so you must use the repository (or download from external sources) located within Xposed to download, install, and customize various parts of the ROM.

Installation:

1.  Root your phone (Varies from phone to phone)

2.  Download latest Xposed Installer (link below)

3.  If downloaded Xposed on your computer, move the APK to your phone through whatever means is easiest

4.  Make sure “Unknown Sources” is allowed on your phone, so that you may install APK’s

5.  Proceed with installing the application

6.  Open Xposed Installer from the App Drawer, select the Framework meny, and select “Install/Update”

7.  Reboot phone

8.  IMPORTANT! Before installing Modules, make sure to android backup your phone . Do this every time, unless you are 100% sure that the module will work without fault on your device

9.  To install Modules (be careful to download the right one, varies for each device), select “Download” inside the Xposed Installer and select which one, scroll to the bottom, and select download/install

10.        After each install, you must enable the Module by selecting it in the “Modules” tab

11.        After every activation/deactivation of a module, it is recommend to reboot your phone

3) Remove Pre-installed Unwanted System Apps 

Yeah, you know that when we buy a new smartphone it will be loaded with some pre-installed apps which basically we don’t need. Those apps just consume our internal memory and never gonna do any good in the future. You might be annoyed with that crap applications that are already in your phone. The problem is that, this apps could not be uninstalled because they must be system apps.

In my case, when i bought a Micromax mobile, it is loaded with some bullshit games and apps and i just hate it. So i rooted my phone and installed a custom lollipop ROM. My phone actually supports up to Android Jellybean. This is where the role of Custom ROM takes place.

After rooting, i got superuser privileges and was able to uninstall the apps which were my headache in the past. It also helped me to save a lot of internal memory and i filled useful apps from google play store in that place.

4) Use External memory as Internal memory

This is the most exciting and useful feature that we get after rooting our android phone. After rooting we will be able to use our external memory (ie; sd card space ) as internal memory for installing apps and storing it there. We could either swap our entire external memory to internal memory or we could partition our memory card so that a predefined space can be obtained just for installing and storing apps.

I have moved 4 GB of my external memory card space just for installing new apps. Now whenever i install new apps from Google play store it will automatically be stored in the partitioned space (4GB and we shouldn’t worry about losing our internal space and need not free up internal memory every time.

This feature is a great boon because every normal android user is getting a system space shortage notification if his smartphone is not having a higher internal memory. In this case our smartphone gets lagged and will be of low performance and our RAM will be consumed more. Other than this some high end games like FIFA and Need For Speed has some file called obb which will consume more and more space that normal android games. This file can also be stored in the memory card if we root our android device. So partitioning our memory card and diverting new apps to install there is a good option.

Note: There are certain requirements to take before partitioning our memory card or swapping our external memory to internal memory. If you need to know this, i’ll be glad to help you at the comments.

5) Remove or Block Ads in Any Apps or Games

This is another exciting advantage we get after rooting our android phone. I have already made a post on How to Remove ads from Android Games & Apps.

We have seen many frustrating ads when we open up some apps or games so that we will get annoyed every time. We will be really helpless at this situation because we can’t afford to uninstall that particular app or game because it may contain anything interesting or useful stuff. In this situation the only thing we can do is to somehow block or remove ads. As a normal android user you can’t block those ads, but if you are a superuser, that means your device is rooted you could simply block those annoying ads in your android phone.

As i said earlier, you can have a look at my post how to remove ads in apps and games when you have successfully rooted your android phone.

6)Install many Useful Apps in Rooted Android

What do you think? Google play store  is not the storehouse all the android apps in the world. There are many more useful and interesting apps outside google play store which are available for rooted android users. This apps helps to make the above 5 features possible in your android phone. There is an app for everything we discussed above like removing system apps (Link2SD), Adblockplus for removing or blocking ads in apps and games, Xposed Framework for installing new modules, ROM Manager for searching new ROM etc.

This apps could be installed in your android phone only when your device is rooted.

Disadvantages of rooting android phone

 

1. Root Access / Super User access

Sure, it’s seems pretty nice to have this. Up until something goes wrong. Do note that one wrong setting or move in the wrong place/time, and “here comes the pain”.

2. CPU Clocking

Although there’s a wide variety of apps out there to help you increase and decrease CPU speed and at least some have pretty good safety features, someone is almost always bound to get it wrong and BBQ their device.

3. Bricking

This is the dreaded word of the rooting world. When you brick your device, it simply means your Android device is now a very fancy and very unusable brick. Yes, there are ways to fix it. It can be surprisingly easy to brick your device. The list of ways is mountain sized. You’d be amazed at some of them.

4. Tweaking

What did you think was going to happen when you adjust a setting wrong? If you guessed “nothing pretty”, you’re good!! Sure, anyone can tweak their device all day long. Find out how FIRST. Otherwise, get ready for that “nothing pretty” wreck!!

5. Ad Blocking

Yes, this one is also considered a downside. Keep in mind that those ads we’re all stuck with are also used to help generate income for the developers. Said income is often used to further develop the app you like using. Blocking those ads all the time might actually become a bigger problem than most would think. Attempting to edit/change an app manually for this purpose could render the app useless.

6. Custom ROMs and Kernels

Yes, they sure can be pretty nice to have and use. They can also be a total nightmare wanting to happen. Get the wrong ROM and/or kernel, your device gets bricked or just outright goes crazy on you. These disasters can cost you a lot in the way of time, money, and effort to fix.

8. Warranty

It’s well known that rooting an Android device will void its warranty. Un-rooting might not work every time. So this particular problem is definitely situation dependent. It’s a matter of if you care about it or not and if the device was under warranty to begin with?

Should I root android device?

Now it depends on your decision whether to root or not your android phone. I have some suggestions to take care before rooting your android device.

·         It is better to root your android phone at the time when you plan to exchange it or it is older.

·         If your phone is costly and have all the advanced features, better not try to root it.

·         Samsung devices are bit tough to root. Do it with proper care.

·         Use the correct android app or procedure to root your android phone. The android app for rooting depends on your device’s brand.

Now you know the answer to the question what can i do with a rooted android?

Must read: 15 Hacking app for rooted app

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